Thursday, February 18, 2010

There's Something About Mary!

The late Charlie Haughey picked the wrong woman to spar with when he tried to put former President Mary Robinson in her box!

History has it that Charlie was used to getting his own way – he taunted people, he teased people, he forced people to do things so that he would succeed at the end of the day.

And now we learn that he tried to bully the woman who held the highest office in the land – Mary Robinson – during her term as President.

That a serving Taoiseach would even contemplate treating a sitting President in a bullying fashion is incredible, considering the legal expertise that Robinson has.

It all happened shortly after Mary Robinson – a legal expert – was elected President of Ireland. Needless to say, Haughey’s nose would have been severely out of joint given the fact that she was a Labour nominee.

Robinson was hugely popular at the Aras and this irked Haughey.

So one day he turned up in the Pheonix Park armed with papers telling her that he had legal opinion to say that she was doing things with the presidency that she wasn’t legally entitled to do.

But he was barking up the wrong tree with Mary Robinson as she knew better – she was an expert in Constitutional Law after all.

She recalled how Haughey – completely exasperated by not getting his way – threw his legal papers on the ground in front of her and stormed off annoyed.

She has revealed that Haughey tried to bully her – ‘he tried to put me in my box’, she said.

His efforts to do so show the low esteem the controversial Haughey placed in the office of President – especially that it wasn’t one of his own in office.